Mass. Gambling Bill Would Criminalize Online Poker 296
timothy writes "Awesome: 'A gambling bill introduced by Massachusetts House Speaker Robert DeLeo criminalizes Internet gambling and online poker. The bill calls for two casinos.' Not that they're against gambling, you see... just against being deprived of a monopoly in such a perfect fleecing opportunity."
Victimless crimes.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't care if my neighbor plays poker. I do care if I have to pay money because my neighbor plays poker.
Re:Victimless crimes.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Agreed.
And honestly, I don't participate in Online Gambling myself, but I think people who want to should have that right. I hope they meet more resistance than just the minority of people who play.
The next thing I need is some bill saying I can't visit an MMO because they too are an online service depriving me of my money. It's my call to make. If you have a problem with gambling, go ahead and try to get it outright banned. Otherwise, targetting just the online sector of it is just silly. Why does the internet make a process any more illegal or immoral?
Of Course MA Wants Monopoly (Score:5, Insightful)
It shouldn't be a shock to anyone that MA, or any state, would want to limit on-line gaming. The only reason any US state has permitted gaming at all is to generate revenue. Being as the states don't have a good mechanism for that on-line, they don't permit it.
One can moan about libertarian ideals and Puritan ethics all one wants. But, all of the players are fully aware of the situation, and have no inhibition against saying so in public, so pointing it out isn't going to make it go away.
Re:Victimless crimes.. (Score:2, Insightful)
How can you call this a victimless crime when you've already been victimized by your own ignorance of the ease with which online gambling becomes online fleecing of the player?
Re:Victimless crimes.. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not that the states really care about you gambling, they just want to have the revenue from it themselves instead of it going to someones Internet business.
Re:Enforcement? (Score:3, Insightful)
You identify the gambling company to the credit-card company and say "if you want to do business in this state you will block transactions to these companies".
If that drives people to mail cash around, you wait for the usual money-laundering detection mechanisms to kick in.
Difficulty in policing something isn't a reason to allow a crime to be legal.
Re:Victimless crimes.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Can you really call someone who chooses to do any particular act a "victim"? Unless there's deception (that isn't part of the act in some way) I'd have a hard time calling the loser a "Victim". Is the guy who loses in a boxing match a victim?
Gambling leaves a trail of victims (Score:3, Insightful)
Casinos are specifically and carefully designed to exploit people's natural instincts (for example, no windows so you have no sense of time) and mental illnesses; the layout of the floor is done purposefully, as are the style of the games. There's a wealth of information out there for anyone with access to Google Scholar [google.com], for example, like this [springerlink.com]:
I don't care if my neighbor plays poker. I do care if I have to pay money because my neighbor plays poker.
You have to pay when your neighbor robs the local convenience store to pay the rent/mortgage/grocer (or their gambling debts, or just to gamble more), loses the house/apartment anyway, and their spouse and child are now homeless and on welfare. Or the person becomes homeless, with no health insurance, and ends up in the hospital. Or goes mentally insane and stabs you on the street corner for the $10 in your wallet.
Take a look at the police spending in any community pre-and-post casino. It always skyrockets after the casinos move in, because casinos attract the desperate, mentally ill, and criminal.
Re:Gambling online is completely fucking stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
Though I agree; if you play virtual games to win physical assets, you are an idiot.
Re:Victimless crimes.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Victimless crimes.. (Score:3, Insightful)
"Why is it that in 2010 we still try to create even more victimless crimes?"
Online gambling is a haven of criminal activity, many of the games are rigged easily, not to mention the hacking of other peoples computers that happens through the software or website to unsuspecting visitors. I know tonne of people who got ripped off through online casino's who had their computers hacked their email passwords stolen and as well as bank/financial data were cleaned out.
It's not that gambling isn't a "victimless crime" it's that online gambling is just so inherently corrupt.
Re:Gambling online is completely fucking stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
What's better: a world where the money belongs to naive innumate fools, or to exploitative hucksters?
Re:Victimless crimes.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Person A gambles away every penny he has, aided by the con game being run by the online poker service.
Person A then goes on welfare, taking even more of your money than it would have cost to stop his online gambling.
The only hypocrisy in this is that Person A will probably end up broke at the Wewannafuckyu Casino on Rte 128. But far fewer will, and they won't be cheated in the process, just ground into meaningless flesh by their own stupidity.
See, stupid is a victimless crime. Conning someone out of their money is not. Knowingly committing an act deemed to have deleterious implications to the welfare of the community, also is not.
Re:Victimless crimes.. (Score:3, Insightful)
How about this:
Your Neighbor: hi, I make/made bad choices and can't afford to feed myself and my children. give me food stamps.
Your Neighbor: hi, I make/made bad choices and can't afford to house myself and my children. give me section 8 housing.
Your Neighbor: hi, I make/made bad choices and can't afford health care for myself and my children. give me universal coverage.
Your Neighbor: hi, I want to play poker with real money.
Me: hi, if I have to pay for your health care, housing and food, you're a child. as a child you don't get to make grown up decisions. you don't get to play poker with real money. just be glad we don't make you come home at six p.m. and make you go to bed at eight p.m. now eat your vegetables.
Re:Gambling online is completely fucking stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
That is an incredibly stupid thing to say. It's obvious you don't know how to play poker - on line or IRL.
Reading your opponents "nervousness" is only a small part of the game. Playing on-line just means everyone has a perfect poker face.
The far more important clues are just as valid on-line as they are in person. How much did he bet? From what position did he play? How long did it take him to think? How often does he bet? How often are the continuation bets? These are all much more important tells then "he looks nervous"...
You can push "all-in" with junk hands and force people off good hands - sure. But if you're playing anyone good, you win maybe a big blind 3-8 times. And as your odds of getting pocket aces are 1 in 215 (or 24 times around a 9 person table), if you push all in long enough, someone will eventually have you beat and call. Donkeys who play like that always go bust if there is anyone moderately good at the table. Sounds like you have had the pleasure...
Re:Victimless crimes.. (Score:3, Insightful)
"online gambling is just so inherently corrupt."
Make sure to ban all politicians as well.
Re:...in USA (Score:5, Insightful)
Not that much is legislated federally
Say what? Congress may not pass all that many bills but the ones they do are multiple warheads filled with scatter bombs.
Re:About time!!! This needs to pass immediately (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Victimless crimes.. (Score:5, Insightful)
> I hope they meet more resistance than just the minority of people who play.
I'm willing to bet they won't. People can't be bothered to resist things like two wars that are costing them hundreds of billions each year, they sure as hell won't get off their asses for the poker player down the block.
Re:Gambling leaves a trail of victims (Score:5, Insightful)
Non sequitur. The existence of a recovery group for addiction to X does not indicate that doing X results in a victim. For instance, there's groups for shopping addiction, yet shopping is victimless.
Same as I have to pay if he robs the local convenience store because he bought too much house for his income, or spent all his money on a business that failed, or any number of things. It's already illegal to rob the local convenience store; making the reasons someone might rob a local convenience store illegal is not compatible with a free dociety.
Casinos attract a lot of people full stop. But this is about _internet_ gambling; the desperate, mentally ill, and criminal can stay right where they are.
Re:Victimless crimes.. (Score:3, Insightful)
It wouldn't be so corrupt if operators could legally set up shop in places where their customers would have meaningful recourse against corrupt operators. Like, for instance, in the same country as the customers.
Re:Victimless crimes.. (Score:3, Insightful)
So how much government help does someone have to accept before you reduce their rights?
Should old people who paid into and now collect Social Security be treated this way?
What about a person who uses public transportation?
Re:Gambling leaves a trail of victims (Score:1, Insightful)
Then that person is a criminal who gambles. That doesn't make me a criminal for gambling.
Remember, 98% of all serial killers eat mash potatoes.
Re:Victimless crimes.. (Score:3, Insightful)
No, you got it on the nose.
The U.S. has one political party, the lobbyists, subdivided into two wings, the Democrats and the Republicans.
Somehow, we call ourselves a democracy. This is exactly why the health care bill's public option was jettisoned. The whole Dems vs Reps was a farce created by the Lobbyists for the insurance companies (if the Dems had wanted to get the (entire) damn thing passed, they would have done so six months ago when they had the votes).
Re:...in USA (Score:2, Insightful)
This is actually far more scary than the title would lead you to believe.
Scaring online poker players and internet gambling aficionados in Massachusetts is text found on page 123 of the 172-page bill. It reads, “Any person who knowingly transmits or receives a wager of any type by any telecommunication device, including telephone, cellular phone, internet, [or] local area network or knowingly installs or maintains said device or equipment for the transmission or receipt of wagering information shall be punished.” The penalty is a hefty one, up to two years behind bars and a fine of up to $25,000.
Translation: if you are in Mass, and you send an email to a buddy along the lines of "Five bucks says Lumburgh is gonna make me come in on Saturday" can get you put in jail and fined.
Re:About time!!! This needs to pass immediately (Score:1, Insightful)
Full Tilt, Poker Stars, etc.. have all been caught red-handed cheating. They rig both the tournaments and the cash games.
Signed,
Someone who sucks at poker, lost their money on these sites, and is looking for something to blame.
Re:Gambling leaves a trail of victims (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Gambling leaves a trail of victims (Score:3, Insightful)
Casinos attract a lot of people full stop. But this is about _internet_ gambling; the desperate, mentally ill, and criminal can stay right where they are.
You would think that if we were concerned about addiction to gambling, we'd outlaw actual casinos, not just online versions. This isn't about caring for addicts or helping people, this is about the State trying to figure out how to control, regulate, and tax this activity. Because if the State isn't getting their "fair share" then no one gets to play...
Re:Gambling leaves a trail of victims (Score:1, Insightful)
Gambling isn't even remotely victimless- why do you think there are recovery groups for gambling addiction?
Everything can be an addiction. There are probably recovery groups for sock folding. It doesn't mean we need laws to protect ourselves against sock folders and their devious ways.
You have to pay when your neighbor robs the local convenience store to pay the rent/mortgage/grocer (or their gambling debts, or just to gamble more)
This is a very rare case. More often than not people can handle their gambling just fine. If 1 out of 100,000 people have a gambling problem, too bad for them. We spend 100x more money on creating and upholding pointless laws so people like yourself can stroke your ego's and get a warm fuzzy feeling in your tummy. Laws like this don't make the world a better place in the slightest, and if you think it does, check your pride and ego first. I'm willing to bet you have a personal or emotional reason behind your decision, that you've spun into a logical justification.
Take a look at the police spending in any community pre-and-post casino. It always skyrockets after the casinos move in, because casinos attract the desperate, mentally ill, and criminal.
These people where always there. The casino just gave them a place to meet up. Any place where a large group of people meet has a higher crime rate. It's called statistics. The same people are teaching your kids, making your tacos, and sitting next to you in your church. The casino didn't make these people who they are.
I turned $1 int $1450 so far (Score:2, Insightful)
I am still playing on money that was in there since the first law came out that said,"US citizens can't deposit money to online gambling sites." Yet, the FBI have taken everyone's withdraws from Pokerstars one month last year. What if people were just withdrawing their money they had in their accounts before the bill was past? Isn't the government trying to do ex post facto?
No one ever stands up for gambler's rights because they're like,"Whatever, they're just gamblers", just like how no one stands up against "sin tax" on alcohol and cigs. Depending on how far it is down the shade of gray depends on how much the government will try and abuse their power. It isn't like they even care that they're abusing their power. They're more worried someone will call them out on it. When they try and censor the web, the first things they try to censor are things some people may find immoral.
Re:Enforcement? (Score:4, Insightful)
I live in Massachusetts.
If you pay your proper bribes you can do just about anything in the area of gambling. Slot machines, poker games, dice tables.
My next door neighbor used to have a high stakes poker game every week. One of the players was the chief of police.
There is an ethnic club in the next town that has slot machines, lotteries, poker games. They pay their bribes and no one bothers them.
What the politicians don't like about internet gambling is there is no way to collect the bribes.
Re:Gambling leaves a trail of victims (Score:4, Insightful)
Casinos are specifically and carefully designed to exploit people's natural instincts
So is World of Warcraft [cracked.com], and no one is trying to outlaw that. Hell, as far as college age people goes, I knew 5 people that dropped out of college as a result of WoW addictions. We're talking playing 100+ hours per week without sleep or going to classes numerous problems with relationships, few friends outside of their addiction, and extreme difficulty holding down a job. In other words, all the hallmarks of a destructive addiction, and any psychologist can tell you that the game is designed to create exactly that.
re: legislation of morality (Score:3, Insightful)
Bottom line, IMHO? NEVER legislate anything based on "morality". If we adhered to that simple policy, we wouldn't have the huge fight over whether or not gays can get married in various states, and we wouldn't have all the nonsense about prostitution (illegal to pay for something it's illegal to get for free, even from the SAME people). We wouldn't blow MASSIVE amounts of tax dollars on the "war on drugs" that's impossible to win either.
And as for laws preventing people from "parading around naked all day long"? I agree. It doesn't make much sense to enforce "indecent exposure" laws, as we have them currently. (In fact, some of the people charged with such a thing for simple public urination during past Mardi Gras celebrations in my city led to them getting put on the sex offender registry! Nice, huh?)
I'd rather say that private establishments are free to enforce their own rules and restrictions on who is welcome on their property. So if your local grocery store still wants to enforce a "no shirt, no shoes - no service!" rule, great. Failure to comply means law enforcement can have you arrested, but not just for "indecent exposure" .... for trespassing.
A better idea (Score:3, Insightful)
Instead of trying to ban or restrict online gambling, why not simply license these sites on the condition that they pay the same gambling taxes as would be paid by a physical casino.
So if someone from Massachusetts plays on a site, the site has to pay gambling taxes to Massachusetts.
Re: legislation of morality (Score:2, Insightful)
"I'd rather say that private establishments are free to enforce their own rules and restrictions on who is welcome on their property. So if your local grocery store still wants to enforce a "no shirt, no shoes - no service!" rule, great. Failure to comply means law enforcement can have you arrested, but not just for "indecent exposure" .... for trespassing."
No Niggers, No Kykes, no Catholics?
Re:About time!!! This needs to pass immediately (Score:3, Insightful)
Who needs proof here on /.? Poster had their AA beaten - definitive proof that teh online pokahz iz rigged!!1! A few of the smaller sites have been busted for dodgy things, I have never seen any proof against Full Tilt or PS (being a fairly serious player both online and live I keep a very close eye on these things). Stars especially has a reputation for solid service and refunding $ to players if anything shady was discovered in any of the games that player played in.
If by any chance the poster does have proof there are many people who would be very interested in seeing it. Trouble is - proof has to be a bit more definitive than "I don't trust their RNG" or "they cheat cause I am the worlds best poker player but can't win online". In re the random number generator - proof or STFU. In re being a good player but can't beat online, the reason for that is because online players tend to be, at least at the small to mid stakes, orders of magnitude better than live players.
Re:Victimless crimes.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Can you really call someone who chooses to do any particular act a "victim"?
That's an interesting philosophical question. The strict answer is yes - the simple example: "Give me your money or I will shoot you" - followed by your choice to give the speaker your money. You had a choice - you could have chosen to take the bullet - but you are also now a "victim". The Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary defines victim as: "someone or something which has been hurt, damaged or killed or has suffered, either because of the actions of someone or something else, or because of illness or chance". This would encompass many forms of gambling.
There are cases where old people are talked into handing over their savings - which they do apparently willingly - because they trust the speaker and do not comprehend that the money is being taken from them. Those people are victims. Where is the line between those people and gamblers? The answer would appear to be some question of what is "reasonable" - it is not reasonable to take a person's life savings, whether through a game of poker, or through some convincing talk. It is reasonable to partake in a game where you lose $1 in exchange for entertainment. It is reasonable to partake in a game where you lose $100 and have some realistic chance of winning a greater amount. It is not reasonable to partake in a game where you lose your life savings and stand no realistic chance of winning a greater amount. It is not reasonable to take money from someone who does not understand the consequences of their actions (that they will have no money, their children will go unfed, etc.). The people who lose in these "unreasonable" games are "victims". But if someone is not coerced, acts in a reasonable manner, with full knowledge of the wider implications of their actions, then they are not a "victim".
Re:Victimless crimes.. (Score:3, Insightful)
You mean like the Victimless Crime of deciding I don't want hospital insurance and would rather just pay cash as needed?
Yeah.
Thanks to the central government that is now a crime, punishable with a ~$1000 annual fine.
But of course that's different. "We" support making free choice a crime. Pretty soon I suspect I'll be fined for the Oreo cookies I just ate, or ice cream I had for dessert last night, or having a BMI greater than 25.